Category Archives: Reviews

@GreenRupertRead review of @HinesColin‘s new book (it’s only a fiver – well worth it), in the latest issue of RESURGENCE AND ECOLOGIST May/June 2017

Protecting the local, globally

Rupert Read reviews Colin Hines’s ebook, Progressive Protectionism

[Park House Press, 2017; ISBN 978-0-9544751-2-3]

Colin Hines is best known as convenor of the ‘Green New Deal’ group that influenced many governments to seize the financial crisis moment to transition economies in a greenish direction. His new book is a feisty clarion call to greens and ‘the Left’ to change direction: away from acquiescence in the trade treaties which shaped the deregulated world that spawned the financial crisis — and toward protection of nature, workers, localities and national sovereignty, as the key locale where democracy might resist rootless international capital. Continue reading →

ABOUT THE BOOK

‘Progressive Protectionism’ details why ever more open borders are increasing inequality, reducing economic activity and threatening the environment. It explains how countries could rebuild and diversify their economies by limiting what finance, goods, services and people they allow to cross their borders.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Colin Hines could be unkindly described as a ‘c’ list environmentalist who has rattled around the environment movement for decades campaigning on population, food, new technology and unemployment, nuclear proliferation and on the adverse environmental and social effects of international trade. He was the Co-ordinator of Greenpeace International’s Economics Unit having worked for the organisation for 10 years. This broad background resulted in his position that the only way to solve these problems was by replacing globalisation’s open borders with ‘Progressive Protectionism’.
He has been ahead of the game in three areas central to this approach. He has published reports and books calling for ‘Green Protectionism’ since 1990 and he was one of the few on the left and active in green politics who foresaw the need and political centrality of curbing inadequately controlled permanent migration. Finally he coined the term ‘Green New Deal’ and convenes the group of the same name which has campaigned for Green Quantitative Easing (QE) to help provide the enormous funding necessary for a nationwide green infrastructure programme. This will result in increased environmental protection and provide jobs in every community.

ALSO BY COLIN HINES

ART DECO LONDON
This lavishly illustrated book shows where in London magnificent examples of art deco can be found, eaten and quaffed in, slept in, shopped in, and campaigned for.

THE KEWTEES
Tiny, plump and gloriously green, the Kewtees find themselves uprooted from their forest home in the strangest of circumstances. They have to travel far and overcome many difficulties before they reach the safety of the Temperate Greenhouse at Kew Gardens.